Heyy Reader, Hope you've had a good week. Keep pursuing your passion projects. you got this 💪

Highlights for this week:
​​❇️ Your Passion Project can save you.
🦄 Creator of the week - Nate Gaffney
🤖 Weekly Prompt: Learn Anything WELL Prompt
🧃 Creator Juice EP01: Tyler Pate(Creative Director & Illustrator)
✍️ My Watch & Learn Playlist: What are Claude Skills?
🖼️ Fun AI-Generated Images: AI Action Figure, Career Edition

❇️ Your Passion Project can save you.

When I think about the past 7 years of my life, I'm grateful I decided to keep working on the things I was passionate about.

The easy option would've been to find excuses not to:

1. "I have a full time job, I don't have time."
2. "My friends and family will judge me."
3. "I don't have the knowledge to start."
4. "It's too late to start."

Instead I said screw the noise, I'm going to do what I enjoy. And here's the thing, I didn't need to "sacrifice" the stuff I love, like spending time with friends or watching movies. I just needed to prioritize my time well enough to find at least 1-2 hours every week.

On the podcast this week, we got into why passion projects matter so much. Our guest put it perfectly: "You don't have to just drastically jump out of the moving car. You can build this stuff up in your own time, with any job."

That's the whole thing, really. It's a mix of Patience, Showing Up, and Curiosity. That's the winning combination.

Patience, to know good things take time, and being okay with that. Showing up, even when it's not every day, just showing up again. Curiosity, to keep asking questions about the things you actually find interesting.

When was the last time you made time to do something you enjoy, a passion project you can keep coming back to?

🦄 Creator of the week - Nate Gaffney

Nate Gaffney (@nategaffney) is a Wolastoqiyik filmmaker based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and co-founder of Wabanaki Media. He has grown his Instagram from 10k to 50k in a few weeks purely by sharing his perspective and using "Trial Reels" (an instagram feature to post only to non-followers) to grow his account.

If you're looking for inspiration, this week you can look to Nate's approach and strategy for social media. You can be inspired by his approach and ask yourself "What do I want to talk about? What are things I have noticed about people? What stories from my past can I share to benefit someone else"
Check out their profile for details here.

✍️ What are Claude Skills?

This week I want to kick off something new. We are going to learn how to streamline our workflows in the coming weeks. To start it off you need to know what a Claude Skill is so watch the video below and I'll see you next week with some fun workflow optimization tips.

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🤖 Prompt: How to Learn Anything!

Found this one scrolling Reddit, a reader posted it as "the best learning prompt" they'd found, and after testing it, I get why. Instead of ChatGPT giving you three generic paragraphs on a topic, this turns it into a proper research assistant: it builds you a menu of "basic" vs "specialized" info and lets you drill down level by level until you've actually learned something instead of skimmed it. Good one for anyone using AI to get up to speed on a new skill fast.

Get the Prompt HERE.

Source: u/AzAI-W on r/ChatGPTPromptGenius

🧃S2 EP1: 15 years, nights and weekends, Paul McCartney, and a pencil head character. ✏️

In this episode, we chat with Tyler Pate, a freelance illustrator and art director who has spent 15 years building The Creative Pain alongside a full-time career. He has done consumer product style guides at Nickelodeon for SpongeBob and TMNT. We talked about what it really means to be consistent (spoiler: it is not about posting every day), why he chose to build a brand around an entity rather than his own name, how he thinks about the balance between social media, client work, and passion projects, and his advice for anyone who is still figuring out where to start.

This one is for anyone who has ever wondered whether the thing they are building on the side is actually going to go somewhere. Tyler is proof that it can, and that it does not require a dramatic moment or a big leap. Just fifteen years of showing up.

Direct Links to: Spotify | Apple Podcasts​

🖼️ Fun weekly AI Generated Images

This week we have: AI Action Figure, Career Edition (Dare you to post your version on LinkedIn 👀 🤷‍♂️)

Prompt: "Using this photo, create a collectible action figure edition based on this person's real profession as a [YOUR JOB]. Dress the figure in an accurate, detailed uniform or outfit for that job. Include three tools or props specific to that career molded into the plastic tray beside the figure. The backer card should read "[YOUR NAME], [JOB TITLE] EDITION" in bold retro toy typography with a small paragraph of fake marketing copy describing their "special abilities" at work. Studio lighting, glossy blister pack plastic, sharp catalog style photography, five fingers per hand, realistic proportions."

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